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It’s been awhile since we’ve posted on the blog, but rest assured, behind the scenes we’ve been adding (and, sadly, subtracting) locations in the photobooth directory, thanks to you, our unflagging readers, and have been noting various films and other examples of booths in popular culture.

Earlier this month, we made a family pilgrimage to Auto Photo in Montreal, catching up with Jeff and George, talking photobooths, and taking some photos, of course!

Jeff was kind enough to set up one of the few remaining color photobooths in their inventory, which was a real treat. As the kids took photos, he and I talked about the general decline in commercially placed booths (in malls and metro stations) and the surprising trickle of business remaining in selling booths and parts to smaller scale ventures, like the local entrepreneurs around the U.S. and Europe who import Canadian booths for placement in bars and restaurants.

Though photobooths in shopping centers and metro stations is in steep decline, there is some solace in the idea that quality Canadian craftsmanship is now giving people photobooth joy all around the world.

Thanks to a tip from Meags, I also visited a completely unique color photobooth at North Star Pinball, a bar in Montreal. Not only are there very few photochemical booths outside malls and metro stations in Canada — we have only three listed, all in Vancouver — but this particular booth is equipped with special-width paper (once used in consulates) and a modified camera, turning out square color photos. After decades of photoboothing in all kinds of machines around the world, there is something quite striking and almost unbelievable about seeing these square photos.

If you’re in Montreal or are planning a visit, stop by and take some photos before the paper is all gone.

Another trip, another chance to check in on one of our far-flung photobooth correspondents, this time Alexander Spevak of Fotoautomat in Prague. It’s beginning to look from the blog at least that the center of the photobooth world has at some point shifted to Europe, with the most recent convention in England and my last four posts now taking stock of the booths and their caretakers in Italy, Netherlands, France, and now the Czech Republic.

I met Alexander at the Rock Café on Národní in the center of town, and we took a few strips, and talked to a couple that came in to take some of their own. The booth is well maintained and obviously popular, and turns out a nice set of photos. Alexander and I discussed the customary topics—paper, chemicals, problems with vandalism—and also how they might work to find a location for their second booth. Even as Prague may seem a perfect town for photobooths, it can still prove difficult to find a location with the right combination of young people and tourists who also care about the difference between photochemical and digital.

It’s always great to meet in person someone you’ve corresponded with about this mutual interest over the years, and I hope when I head back to Prague in April, maybe there will be another booth to see out and about. Thanks, Alexander!

While I’m no longer discovering new booths during my travels at the rate I used to ten or fifteen years ago, a number of work trips have recently brought me to cities where young entrepreneurs operate thriving photobooth businesses—first Florence in July, 2016; then Amsterdam in November; and last month, Paris.

I met Virginie and Eddy at their booth on the Rue des Trois Frères in Montmartre, a lovely street-side machine which operates 24 hours a day, and judging by my inability to get a clear photo without someone in it, is pretty busy most of those hours. We talked photobooths, took some photos, and had a good time connecting over our shared interest. The European photobooth scene is definitely thriving, and I was impressed yet again to see the ingenuity and creativity of the people involved in returning photochemical booths to the continent.

With a day to spare in Amsterdam on a work trip, I got in touch with Stefan and Madri at Photoautomat Amsterdam to see if I could meet them and check out their booths around the city.

With Stefan out of town, my thanks to Madri for letting me tag along on her route as she serviced the booths at the Hutspot, the Student Hotel, and the Hoxton Hotel, all located around the center of Amsterdam. I rented a cycle and followed along as well as I could, not being a practiced Amsterdam cyclist, which is an entirely different kind of cycling…

First stop was the Hutspot, where the booth is located just inside the door of this very cool restaurant/shop/barbershop. We hadn’t had a sample photo in our entry for this booth for some reason, so that’s now been fixed. I enjoyed using their custom-made token for the booth, and had to ask for one to take home with me…

Finally, we headed to the Hoxton Hotel, for one of the most impressive booth locations I’ve ever seen. The photobooth is tucked inside a perfectly-sized alcove at the top of a long set of stairs, which lead only to the booth, so you feel as though you’re approaching a throne or altar as you prepare to take your photos. It was a fitting end to a great tour, and I look forward to seeing where they place their next booth.

Thanks again to Madri for showing me around, and congratulations to Stefan and Madri for running a great photobooth operation that is keeping the photochemical tradition alive in Amsterdam.

Matteo Sani of Fotoautomatica in Florence has been keeping in touch with Photobooth.net for years, since we first became aware of his lovely outdoor booths in Florence in 2011. I always hoped to visit him and tour his booths one day, and finally, a work trip to Italy this summer provided the opportunity.

We’re excited to announce that the International Photobooth Convention, a celebration of analogue photobooths and the art that is created with them, is back in 2016! Our friends Mr. Mixup, Kate Tyler, and colleagues at Fred Aldous in Manchester, UK, will be putting on the event this May. After a few iterations stateside, the convention is returning to its European roots. Here’s the info:

Returning to the UK for the first time in nearly a decade, The International Photobooth Convention 2016 will take place Monday 9 — Friday 13 of May at Fred Aldous in Manchester.

Led by photobooth artists Mr Mixup and Kate Tyler along with Ali Gunn from Fred Aldous, the convention will be a celebration of analogue photobooths through workshops, discussion, exhibition, and film.

Mr Mixup, Kate Tyler and local artists Caroline Dowsett, Aliyah Hussain, Mariel Osborn, John Powell-Jones and Layla Sailor will be running workshops and informal drop-in sessions throughout the convention which will explore the creative potential of the analogue photobooth. Visitors to the convention will have the chance to collaborate with the artists, experiment with different creative techniques and create their own mini masterpieces.

To coincide with Manchester After Hours, on the Thursday of the convention Fred Aldous be staying open late for Freds at Night III. From 6–8.30pm, Fred Aldous and The International Photobooth Convention will be hosting an evening of creative collaboration, photobooth mugshots, 3 minute live portraits and the legendary Freds at Night Risograph zine workshop hosted by Mono print collective.

On the final day of the week between 12–5pm the International Photobooth Convention play host to a Dog Day Afternoon. Visitors are invited to bring their dog in for a free photobooth portrait and to enter into the Fred Aldous Instagram dog show.

Throughout May, Fred Aldous will be exhibiting work by Mr Mixup and Kate Tyler along with artworks created during the course of the convention. The International Photobooth Convention is free and open to all.

From the outside, it looks like Photobooth.net has been dormant all summer and fall, but behind the scenes, we’ve received a pretty constant stream of updates from our dedicated readers out there, for which we are eternally grateful.

Since the last update six months ago, we’ve added no fewer than twenty new booth locations around the world, from the Pacific Northwest to Maryland and New York City, and from the South of France to Vienna and Amsterdam.

Thanks to all who contributed, and apologies to all for the somewhat longer than normal amount of time it took to get your contributions up on the site.

At right, we have photos of a number of booths new to the site. Click the links in the post or the photos to check out some of the entries.

We’re looking forward to another year of photobooth news and notes, and we’ve got some changes and updates planned for 2016. Happy new year!

Thanks to each of the following folks for taking the time to document and send in info on these far-flung booths, and on to the updates:

We’re emerging from another long winter (and the continued unwanted attentions of pesky hackers) with a long-gestating report on some updates over the last few months. Thanks as always to our eyes and ears around the world for sending news of photobooths our way.

First, we heard from Lucy in Zürich about a new booth there, just the second one, as far as we can tell, operating in that lovely city.

Next, we heard from Stefan in Amsterdam, who reports that “We are growing!” which translates to a new home for their first booth, and the addition of a new booth to their roster.

We also heard from Chris, who reported that a new booth has replaced the previously documented booth at La Maison Rouge in Paris. The eternal photobooth shuffle continues…

We applaud our European colleagues for continuing to keep the analog photobooth alive, and encourage anyone with updates or news about new locations to get in touch so we can continue to keep track of the current whereabouts of these photobooths.

We have a few North American updates to report, as well. Thanks to Kelly for sending in a sample photo from a booth at the Avalon Mall in St. John’s, Newfoundland, one of the few color machines still operating in Canada.

We first met Meags Fitzgerald at the 2012 Photobooth Convention in Venice, after corresponding via email for four years about photobooth locations around the world (she’s one of our most prolific contributors). At the convention, she told us about one of her many projects, a graphic novel about photobooths, which sounded like an intriguing idea. Two years later, the book is finished. It’s a remarkable accomplishment, and has been deservedly picking up rave reviews since its release.

We were lucky enough have an early look at the book and an inside peek at how it was made at the 2014 Photobooth Convention in Chicago earlier this year. We may be a little biased, as we make a cameo appearance in the book, but it’s a beautiful and thoughtful look at the history of photobooths as well as the story of Meags’ life-long relationship with these machines and the photos they produce.
As writer and radio host Jonathan Goldstein writes,

“Fitzgerald has created something that’s more than candid personal memoir, more than carefully researched cultural history — she’s created a work brimming with that rarest of things: love. That I should use such a word to explain a young woman’s feelings for photobooths certainly sounds improbable and maybe even a little crazy. And that’s precisely why this book is so wonderful.”

You can read reviews and listen to interviews with Meags about her book on her blog.

Since the convention, we’ve had an incredible list of new booth locations to add to the site, from six countries on three continents. I can’t remember the last time we had such a varied and interesting set of contributions. Thanks again to our readers for continuing to document these booths so faithfully.

We’ll start with a real surprise, our first ever photobooth located on the continent of Africa! Thanks to a conversation we had at the convention, Steph sent me photos and info about the booth, located in the center of Kampala, Uganda, which she had visited in 2007. We’re not certain it’s still there, but either way, we’re happy to have the booth listed in our directory.

And just this week, thanks to an email from Stefan of Photoautomat Amsterdam, we’re elated to be able to add a photochemical photobooth location along the Herengracht canal in lovely Amsterdam. The booth is located at the Lomography Store, and takes euro coins and custom tokens — nice!

Our thanks go out as well to Matteo of Fotoautomatica, who has informed us of a new black and white booth location at Borgo Burger in Livorno, Italy, bringing their total to five machines around the country.

Staying in Portland, we’d like to finally thank our convention buddy Kory for contributing photos and info from a black and white booth at Dot’s Cafe, with its lovely polka dot back curtain.

And finally, thanks to Nathan for letting us know about the black and white booth at Montana, a bar in Seattle. Especially in busy photobooth cities like Portland and Seattle, locations are always coming and going, so we rely on our readers to keep us posted. Thanks again, everyone, and keep the emails coming! We’ll be back next week with another update recap from the summer.